


Declassified

by Headline (Newsy)



Series: Headline's Chronicles [2]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Original Character(s), POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 15:19:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newsy/pseuds/Headline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Science is deadly when research findings fall into the wrong hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Declassified

Nova Cronum was not typically a place of great interest for anyone but full-time researchers, and full-time researchers were not typically a subject of great interest for a wartime press corps.  Now and then, though, one of those peaceful Autobot civilian academic types hit on something of substantial military importance.

This was one of those times.  I watched through my camera’s viewfinder as Swerve, the lead researcher on what had been dubbed the Tertiary Project, described the successful and surprising outcome of his work.  With only the knowledge that the Tertiary Project would have military applications, we in the press corps had assumed it to be a weapons-development project.  We had been wrong.  The Tertiary Project was not merely about weapons, but about entire mechs.  Soon, three Autobot warriors would carry unprecedented technology into battle – built-in technology in their frames, allowing them to transform from robotic forms into not one but two alternate configurations.

“Headline,” Swerve said with a proud and pleasant smile, “meet the first triple-changing Cybertronians.”

Mine were the first optics from outside the secluded lab-city of Nova Cronum to see the results of the newly declassified project.  Slamdance would have dispatched himself instead, but both halves of him were in medbay after an unscheduled and unpleasant meeting with the wrong end of a Decepticon rifle.

The three beneficiaries of the Tertiary Project research almost comically dwarfed the minibot scientist.  The huge and bulky mech Broadside was first to test out his new transformations.  To his familiar robot and all-terrain ground transport forms had been added a third, airborne mode, also designed for troop transport.  Sandstorm followed, cycling from robot to flyer to newly fashioned ground vehicle and back again.  Swerve beamed at the evidence of his success.

Last came Springer, already a proven fighter for his young age.  Only a few orns ago, he’d been honored for battlefield bravery with a Mark of Commendation, one of the youngest Autobot warriors ever to receive the designation.  He, too, had a new ground vehicle mode to add to his old short-range flyer and robot modes.

He recognized me from the ceremony.  “Hey!” he cheerfully greeted me as he transformed back into robot mode, bounding up and down a few times on his bouncy legs that were his namesake.

“Quite a change for you, Springer,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s different,” he replied.

His next words were drowned out by the trademark roar of Seeker engines approaching from the southwest.  Swerve ran to activate an alarm, triggering the deafening howl of klaxons in the building.  “Take cover!” he warned me.  I didn’t need the warning.  I ran into the back of the lab on Swerve’s heels and concealed myself as well as I could behind a row of supply cabinets.

“Trial by fire, guys,” Springer shouted, taking flight mode and lifting off the ground.  Sandstorm and Broadside followed suit, and each engaged a Seeker midair.

The Seekers, though, were hardly interested in an aerial fight.  Starscream landed first, transformed and headed straight for the door of the lab, stopping only to fire a few retaliatory shots at Sandstorm.  Thundercracker and Skywarp touched down behind him and followed the Seeker commander inside, all but ignoring Broadside and Springer.

Swerve stood alone in front of the three imposing Decepticons, armed with only a handgun.  I resisted the urge to come out of hiding and stand alongside him, convincing myself that my battlefield ineptitude and my lack of potent armaments would be more of a hindrance than a help.

Starscream elbowed Skywarp and pointed at a datapad on a work table behind Swerve.  “Get the plans,” he ordered.

Swerve lunged in an effort to grab the datapad first, reaching it at the same instant as Skywarp.  They struggled over the sensitive information, and Swerve gained control of it by distracting Skywarp with a kick to the knee.

Despite his momentary success, Swerve and his handgun were no match for the Seekers’ quick dodging and high-powered weaponry.  The angry Skywarp blinked out of view, then reappeared behind Swerve and surprised him with a shot to the back.  Thundercracker broke off his rapid-fire attack on the charging triple-changers and followed with a blast to Swerve’s front, and the combined assault forced the smaller and weaker Autobot to lose his grip on the sought-after plans.  Starscream caught the crucial information and transformed, shouting a command to his cohorts as he departed.  “Our work is done here!  Return to base!”

“But there’s another signal!” Thundercracker protested.  I held perfectly still, hoping I was concealed well enough to buy a little time before my beacon inevitably gave away my position.

“You heard the boss,” Skywarp said.  He grabbed Thundercracker forcefully by one arm and, paying no attention to the blue Seeker’s objections or the chase fire of the three triple-changing mechs, dragged him away from the lab.

I waited a few more tense kliks, listening as the klaxons continued blaring, before emerging from hiding and checking on Swerve.  He was lying motionless on his back in a growing pool of liquid as oil, mech fluid and liquefied energon flowed from the wound in his back.  More fluids escaped from a severed fuel line in the visible wound to his torso.  Normally a vibrant shade of red, his housing had faded to a dull reddish-gray.  His optics flickered dimly as though about to go dark.

“Hang on,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and my hands steady.  “Hang on.”  Swerve only gurgled in response.

With no tools to help me, I clumsily tied off the hemorrhaging line in Swerve’s torso.  The loss of vital fluids slowed, but only slightly.  I gingerly rolled him over on his side to expose the severe wound to his upper back and repeated the procedure a few more times, but the fluids continued flowing, covering my hands and making them so slippery that I had to break off my rescue efforts.

At the sound of rapid footsteps, I froze in position over Swerve, in part because I knew he needed protection but mostly because I was too petrified to move.  I only turned around when I recognized the voice as that of another Autobot.  “Civvie, what in the Pit are you doing here?”

Sunstreaker stood over me, glaring with his arms folded.  “I’m _trying_ to help Swerve,” I snapped in a tone that matched his glare.

“I _mean,_ what are you doing with no cover?” Sunstreaker groaned in exasperation.  “I doubt your housing’s any better than the tin foil he’s got.  You ought to be thanking Primus we got the distress call before you did anything stupider and got yourself blown to scrap.”

“So that means I’ve got cover _now,_ right?”  Turning my back on Sunstreaker, I searched Swerve’s injuries for another line to close.

Sunstreaker practically shoved me out of the way and grabbed the unconscious Swerve by the shoulders.  “Get his feet, civvie,” he ordered me.  “Septic’s lab’s not far.”

“Septic?” I repeated.

“Perceptor,” Sunstreaker nearly shouted into my left aural receptor.  “Unicron’s horns, do I have to tell you _everything?”_

We said nothing to each other on the short journey from Swerve’s lab to Perceptor’s small lab that doubled as Nova Cronum’s medical facility.  As we carried the wounded scientist, Sideswipe and Tracks scoured the area for any remaining Decepticons and looked for other possible casualties along with the three triple-changers.  The continued flow of fluids from Swerve’s injuries left a visible trail behind us and drained yet more color from his frame.

“Septic, got one critical,” Sunstreaker shouted by way of greeting at the door of Perceptor’s lab.

Perceptor rushed to meet us in the doorway and collected Swerve’s weakening frame from us.  “Can you provide me an estimate of the amount of fluid loss he has suffered thus far?” he asked, starting an examination on the way to his makeshift operating theater.

“A lot,” I said, following Perceptor and leaving Sunstreaker at the door.  “I tried to stop it, but –”

“I appreciate your efforts,” Perceptor cut me off.  “And I will continue endeavoring to resuscitate him, of course.  But I fear the wounds will ultimately be fatal.”

The physician lowered Swerve onto his operating table, fetched one of his surgical tools and began sealing off the lines that still vented fluid from his frame, but his words proved correct.  All color disappeared from the minibot’s housing, and his optics blacked out, leaving him a gray shell before I even had time to exit the room.

“Oh, no,” I whispered.

Perceptor scrambled to check for any sign of life in Swerve’s body.  Finding none, he somberly took a step backward and shook his head.  “Know that you shall be remembered, Swerve,” he said, as though the smaller ‘Bot’s Spark could still hear.  “And know that you shall be missed.”  He returned to his task of sealing off Swerve’s fuel lines, working more slowly, preparing the minibot’s frame for interment.

Shaken, I slipped out of the operating theater and out of Perceptor’s lab.  To my surprise, I found Sunstreaker still waiting – casually seated against the outer wall of the building to the right of the entryway, but still waiting.

“How’s short stuff?” he asked in a voice every bit as casual as his posture.

“Dead,” I sighed.

Sunstreaker reacted with… well, with a lack of reaction.  He stared straight ahead as I settled into a seated position on the other side of the doorway.

Blacking out my optics and leaning my head back against the wall, I replayed the events over and over in my processor.  Swerve was a peaceful civilian to the core, too scatterbrained to be effective on the battlefield but perfectly suited for the lab, and had only begun keeping a weapon when ordered to do so to protect the sensitive secrets Nova Cronum held.  How, then, had he died the death of a warrior?

After a long and awkward silence, Sunstreaker transformed and revved his engine.  “The ‘Cons are gone, you can’t do anything else here – let’s go home.”  He moved in front of me.  “Stay back, civvie.”

“You’re gonna cover me up front?” I said, surprised at the apparent presence of chivalry somewhere in Sunstreaker’s processor.

“I was mostly thinking I didn’t want you slowing me down.  But yeah, that too.”  So much for chivalry.

I transformed and followed behind Sunstreaker, but still close enough for communication if the need arose.  Most of the way back to Iacon, we remained silent and watched for any stray Decepticons.  For the entire drive, I thought of Swerve, of his slow and painful death and how I should have been able to do more.

“You didn’t do half bad,” Sunstreaker grudgingly said as the landmarks of inner Iacon came into view.

I slowed slightly in confusion.  “What, you mean with Swerve?”

“Yeah.”

“But… but he died.”

“Yeah, and?  It’s war.  Mechs die.”  Sunstreaker idled for a few kliks to let me accelerate and catch up.  “You’ve seen death before.”

“Not that close up.  And not on a civvie.  Not like that.”  I was driving side by side with Sunstreaker now.  “Civvies aren’t supposed to die like that.”

“No, they’re not.  But it’s hard to last long being a civvie.”

“How would _you_ know anything about civilian life?”

Sunstreaker accelerated until he was in front of me again, then braked hard to force me into a sharp left turn.  “Look straight ahead.”

In front of me was the outer wall of the Decagon, covered with the familiar mural I’d seen time and again since the moment I came online.  “Yeah, I’ve seen that thousands of times.  And?”

“I did that,” Sunstreaker casually informed me.

 _“You_ did – wow,” I said, genuinely impressed.

Sunstreaker transformed and beamed proudly.  “I know.”  While my face was still hidden from view in vehicle mode, I smiled at his obvious pleasure in his work.

I drove at a slow and contemplative pace back to press corps headquarters.  As much as I hated to admit it, Sunstreaker had a point; it was getting harder and harder to last long as a civilian.  Little Swerve had died in battle, Perceptor was treating war injuries, and even one of the most battle-hardened fighters among the Autobots, Sunstreaker himself, had sacrificed civilian pursuits.

How long, I wondered, could I remain in a purely civilian occupation, with no battlefield responsibilities and a weapon that was barely a weapon?  And with vital information on the Tertiary Project in Decepticon hands, had that time grown shorter still?

The answers to those questions would have to come later.  For now, I had my civilian job to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Original character Headline created by the author. Other characters, as well as Transformers itself, are the property of Hasbro and are used for non-profitable entertainment purposes only.


End file.
